S.N. Sahu 
The offensive casteist remarks faced by leader of the opposition, Rahul Gandhi, at the hands of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Anurag Thakur in the Lok Sabha during its budget session is nothing new in a highly caste-ridden Indian society. The pages of our history show that even a cerebral monk like Swami Vivekananda, acclaimed worldwide for his brilliant exposition of Vedant and spirituality, was hurled invectives based on caste on his return to India after he delivered series of lectures in America including the famous Chicago address in the World Parliament of Religions in 1893.
While Rahul was targeted for his repeated assertions demanding caste census by Thakur on the despicable ground that those not knowing their caste identity should not ask for counting castes, Swami Vivekananda was told that he had no right to be a Sanyasi because he was a Shudra, those in the lower order of caste hierarchy after Brahmins and Kshytriyas. Vivekananda gave an account of the abuse he faced in his book Lectures From Colombo to Almora which contains the speeches he delivered in response to the rousing welcome accorded to him in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, and different cities of India on his return from America.
Thankur’s casteist remarks violates constitution
Rahul while speaking on budget for the year 2024 repeatedly demanded caste census claiming that it would enable provide remedy to the monopoly over resources of the country and pave the way for representation to those who remained excluded from the decision-making process and the affairs of governance. It so rattled BJP ranks that Thakur hurled that highly cutesiest slur shocking the House and the collective conscience of the nation. His abominable remarks clearly conveyed the message that that only on knowing the caste identity and status a legislator would get actuated to perform her/his duties in the House.
So, Thakur’s despicable utterances by linking caste profile with performance underlined the prescription of Manusmriti assigning the duties to people on the basis of their ascribed status in the caste system brilliantly defined by B R Ambedkar “as an ascending order of reverence and descending order of contempt.” The sum and substance of Thakur’s assertion that a person’s conduct and work must follow his knowledge and awareness of her caste profile goes against the very essence of the constitution celebrating equality and equal opportunity for all regardless of ascribed status defined by caste or any other primordial factor.
Cattiest remarks often confronted in society by people should never have been get said by a MP who takes oath bearing true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India. But tragically Thakur did so in violation of the Constitution.
Rahul’s gracious response
The manner in which Rahul Gandhi was confronted with Anurag Thakur’s atrocious casteist remarks that he has no right to ask for caste census because he does not know his caste did not annoy Rahul Gandhi who like other Members of the House did not ask for apology from him. He rather stated that “You can insult me as much as you want, but you should not forget that we will get the caste census bill passed in parliament.”
He proceeded to add that there was no need to ask for forgiveness from Thakur as Rahul knew that abuses would be heaped on him for taking up the cause of Dalits, OBCs and Scheduled Tribes who suffered social and economic disadvantages and he was prepared to bear the rebukes. In saying so, Rahul indicated that he was not upset by the manner in which Thakur ill-treated him by those casteist remarks.
Swami Vivekananda’s response
It is illuminating to note when Vivekananda was told in India that he had not right to be a Sanyasi (a monk who renounces the worldly life) because by caste he was a Shudra he never felt hurt. He said in his speech under the caption “My Campaign Plan” and delivered in the erstwhile Madras that “I read in the organ of the social reformers that I am called a Shudra and am challenged as to what right a Shudra has to become a Sannyasin”.
Swami Vivekananda at the Parliament of Religions in 1893. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
In response, he informed that he traced his ancestry to one at whose feet every Brahmin used to lay flowers. He proceeded to sharply remark that the so called reformers should learn from mythology or Pauranika scriptures, that his “…caste, apart from other services in the past, ruled half of India for centuries”. “In Bengal alone”, he claimed, “my blood has furnished them with their greatest philosopher, the greatest poet, the greatest historian, the greatest archaeologist, the greatest religious preachers; my blood has furnished India with the greatest of her modern scientists”. “These detractors” he stated, “ought to have known a little of our own history, and to have studied our three castes, and learnt that the Brahmin, the Kshatriya, and the Vaishya have equal right to be Sannyasins.”
While putting forth the point that he mentioned those things, in his words, “….only by the way,” he made it clear by stating that “….I am not at all hurt if they call me a Shudra”. He then courageously confessed, “It will be a little reparation for the tyranny of my ancestors over the poor”. “If I am a Pariah,”(an outcaste), he proceeded to add, “I will be all the more glad, for 1 am the disciple of a man, who the Brahmin of Brahmins wanted to cleanse the house of a Pariah”.
Lessons from both Vivekananda and Rahul’s responses
The response of Rahul to the casteist abuse he faced from Thakur in the Lok Sabha has a parallel with the responses Vivekananda gave when he was abused on the basis of caste. While Rahul identified himself with the scheduled castes, OBCs and tribes in face of the abuses he faced in the Lok Sabha, Swami Vivekananda had set a shining example of a person in the early part of 20th century in defining himself in terms of the identity of the poor who he admitted were oppressed by his ancestors and had no hesitation in describing his status as a Pariah. He had the nobility of doing so in face of the contempt he confronted on the basis of caste.
Castes are anti-national
Those two examples, one of Swami Vivekananda and the other of Rahul Gandhi, clearly indicate how caste-based insults are heaped on people regardless of their stature and standing. One can well imagine how people with their place in the lower order of caste hierarchy would be situated with repeated affront encountered by them in the name of their caste profiles. No wonder that Ambedkar in his last speech in the Constituent Assembly described castes as anti-national and the abuses of Thakur on the basis of caste fall in that category.
S. N. Sahu Served as Officer on Special Duty to President of India K R Narayanan.